Railroad adventure II: The Gotthardbahn
After my trip on the wonderful Bergen-Oslo railroad in May, it was time in June for my next exciting railroad journey. Stockholm - Lugano and back. A journey of about 26 hours each way. The most exciting part was the Gotthardbahn, a classic Alp crossing in Switzerland between Art Goldau and Bellinzona (or between Immensee and Chiasso, however you want it). The railroad achieves a height above sea level of 1151 meters (in the 15 kilometers long tunnel under the St. Gotthard Pass), so it does not get quite as high as the Bergenbanen. But the construction is more exciting, including a hairpin curve at Wassen and no less then seven spiral tunnels. The incline is also rather large, up to 2.8 percent. At that gradient one easily notices that one is going uphill or downhill!
The photos are not as good as from the Bergenbanen. My camera broke on my way down, so I got a new one which is not of the same quality. Plus the windows were much dirtier and more reflective in Switzerland than in Norway! Fancy that!
The train ready to start from Lugano with destination Basel.
A freight train is entering the Pianotondo spiral tunnel on its way down, i.e., south. Note a second level of tracks between where the freight train is and where I am (one can see the poles for the overhead wire). That is between the Pianotondo tunnel and the Travi spiral tunnel.
We would later meet that train, just about straight below where it was on the previous picture. Note that the bridge on which it was in the previous picture is visible at the top.
The three levels at Pianotondo/Travis are clearer on this photo, despite the dirty window. We have passed through both spiral tunnels. The closest track is between the Pianotondo tunnel and the Travis tunnel, and the track crossing the river just to the right and below the center of the image is the bottom level. My train is now where the freight train was in the earlier image, while I was then on the bottom level.
Parallel to the railroad is a highway, and some amazing scenery which I could not make justice with my cheapish camera photographing through a dirty trainwindow.
I believe this industrial site might have something to do with the Gotthard Base Tunnel (see below).
Coming out of the Freggio spiral tunnel, I caught a nice picture that illustrates the complexity of both the railroad engineering and road building. A minute or so before I took the picture, I was on the track just below. To gain height without getting too much of a gradient, the track goes in a large circle inside the mountain. This section of the rail is at a particularly thorny stretch of the valley, where it narrows to a wild gorge.
There are many tunnels on the Gotthardbahn. The longest is the one under the pass itself, which is 15 kilometers long. When it opened in 1882, it was the longest tunnel in the world. This is not the Gotthard tunnel itself, just one of the other ones.
The most remarkable stretch of the track is at Wassen, where the track is laid out in a serpentine with hairpin turns. Here is a photo from the beginning of this stretch. Far below is visible the lowest leg of the serpentine, the track coming out of the Wattinger tunnel, where my train will be in a few minutes.
This map sketch reveals how the track runs.
One may use the church in Wassen to orient oneself. At first one is far above it. Then one passes it on about the same level and finally, the tracks go in a tunnel under it. (Sorry for the reflexion of the camera in the window).
The railroad passes over the river Meienreuss three times on three different bridges. Here is a photo taken from the upper Meienreuss bridge. The road bridge and the middle Meienreuss railroad bridge are visible, as well as the church in Wassen.
The Wassen church from the middle level.
The same exit from the Wattinger tunnel as above (photographed from the highest level). Here photographed from the middle level.
The middle Meienreuss bridge photographed from the bottom level of the serpentine. Compare the picture taken from the upper Meienreuss bridge, above!
Alpine landscape.
The end station for the train: Basel Schweizische Bundesbahnhof.
The Gotthardbahn will be closed down within a few years. The Swiss have come under pressure from the European Union to expand their road network over the Alps, for the roads are now full of freight going to and from Italy. A lot is transported on the Gotthardbahn, of course, but with all the spiral tunnels and large gradients, those trains are slow, and the capacity is not as great as it could be. This is why the EU turned down the alternative to transport freight by train. So the Swiss response: OK, we just build a railroad tunnel through all of the Alps. This, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be almost sixty kilometers long, it will have low gradients, and it will make it possible for highspeed trains to pass under the Alps, instead of going over them slowly as on the present Gotthardbahn. The containers will simply be lifted over onto train cars. And there will be trains that take cars. This is some forward thinking.
Actually, there were many kilometers of track on my trip that has been laid during the last twenty years. This makes me wonder why Yale so often is boasting about having with legal maneuvres been able to change an endowed chair in railroad engineering into more general engineering. Really something to boast about? It seems to me that the world urgently needs more good railroad engineers (and then I haven't even started to talk about the railroad construction that is happening in China right now).
The photos are not as good as from the Bergenbanen. My camera broke on my way down, so I got a new one which is not of the same quality. Plus the windows were much dirtier and more reflective in Switzerland than in Norway! Fancy that!
The train ready to start from Lugano with destination Basel.
A freight train is entering the Pianotondo spiral tunnel on its way down, i.e., south. Note a second level of tracks between where the freight train is and where I am (one can see the poles for the overhead wire). That is between the Pianotondo tunnel and the Travi spiral tunnel.
We would later meet that train, just about straight below where it was on the previous picture. Note that the bridge on which it was in the previous picture is visible at the top.
The three levels at Pianotondo/Travis are clearer on this photo, despite the dirty window. We have passed through both spiral tunnels. The closest track is between the Pianotondo tunnel and the Travis tunnel, and the track crossing the river just to the right and below the center of the image is the bottom level. My train is now where the freight train was in the earlier image, while I was then on the bottom level.
Parallel to the railroad is a highway, and some amazing scenery which I could not make justice with my cheapish camera photographing through a dirty trainwindow.
I believe this industrial site might have something to do with the Gotthard Base Tunnel (see below).
Coming out of the Freggio spiral tunnel, I caught a nice picture that illustrates the complexity of both the railroad engineering and road building. A minute or so before I took the picture, I was on the track just below. To gain height without getting too much of a gradient, the track goes in a large circle inside the mountain. This section of the rail is at a particularly thorny stretch of the valley, where it narrows to a wild gorge.
There are many tunnels on the Gotthardbahn. The longest is the one under the pass itself, which is 15 kilometers long. When it opened in 1882, it was the longest tunnel in the world. This is not the Gotthard tunnel itself, just one of the other ones.
The most remarkable stretch of the track is at Wassen, where the track is laid out in a serpentine with hairpin turns. Here is a photo from the beginning of this stretch. Far below is visible the lowest leg of the serpentine, the track coming out of the Wattinger tunnel, where my train will be in a few minutes.
This map sketch reveals how the track runs.
One may use the church in Wassen to orient oneself. At first one is far above it. Then one passes it on about the same level and finally, the tracks go in a tunnel under it. (Sorry for the reflexion of the camera in the window).
The railroad passes over the river Meienreuss three times on three different bridges. Here is a photo taken from the upper Meienreuss bridge. The road bridge and the middle Meienreuss railroad bridge are visible, as well as the church in Wassen.
The Wassen church from the middle level.
The same exit from the Wattinger tunnel as above (photographed from the highest level). Here photographed from the middle level.
The middle Meienreuss bridge photographed from the bottom level of the serpentine. Compare the picture taken from the upper Meienreuss bridge, above!
Alpine landscape.
The end station for the train: Basel Schweizische Bundesbahnhof.
The Gotthardbahn will be closed down within a few years. The Swiss have come under pressure from the European Union to expand their road network over the Alps, for the roads are now full of freight going to and from Italy. A lot is transported on the Gotthardbahn, of course, but with all the spiral tunnels and large gradients, those trains are slow, and the capacity is not as great as it could be. This is why the EU turned down the alternative to transport freight by train. So the Swiss response: OK, we just build a railroad tunnel through all of the Alps. This, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be almost sixty kilometers long, it will have low gradients, and it will make it possible for highspeed trains to pass under the Alps, instead of going over them slowly as on the present Gotthardbahn. The containers will simply be lifted over onto train cars. And there will be trains that take cars. This is some forward thinking.
Actually, there were many kilometers of track on my trip that has been laid during the last twenty years. This makes me wonder why Yale so often is boasting about having with legal maneuvres been able to change an endowed chair in railroad engineering into more general engineering. Really something to boast about? It seems to me that the world urgently needs more good railroad engineers (and then I haven't even started to talk about the railroad construction that is happening in China right now).
Kommentarer
Postat av: h-ej
Häftigt.
Postat av: Anonym
Verkligen fina bilder!
Trackback
